The present invention relates to visualization of 3D medical image data, and more particularly, to automated visualization of 3D medical image data to provide accelerated reading of the 3D medical image data.
Reading medical image data stored in a 3D volume, such as a computed tomography (CT) volume, magnetic resonance (MR) volume, dynaCT volume, etc., is a challenging and time-consuming task. This is due, in part to, the fact that humans are used to reading 2D images. Hence, a 3D volume typically must be sliced or cut into 2D images for reading by a user. Furthermore, high information density of 3D volumes leads to further challenges. As 3D medical imaging scanners become more advanced, a large number of slices (e.g., 1000+ slices) may be acquired, thereby creating a pressing information burden to users who are attempting to read and interpret a 3D medical volume. In addition, a 3D medical image volume may contain unnecessary information. For specific clinical applications, not all slices of a 3D medical volume are useful and within a useful slice, not all voxels are useful. However, image reading systems will typically present all of the information contained in a 3D medical image, leaving the user to manually sort the useful information from the unnecessary information.